Tratkiwi

I'm sitting in the Qantas lounge now. I can confirm that flights are still running early and are now stoping in Perth for 1 hour 15 minutes. The supervisor at check in said this will be reassessed early next week.

DS7

Would you be kind enough to let me know how you get on with this as I am trying to do the same thing..

Thanks in advance

captainak

Hi, I had no luck on the reservations line. On twitter i was offered to move flight forward or back a day. LHR wasn't allowed as over the 500 mile limit for changes.
Flight was actually okay, the stop broke it up a bit. Managed a shower in DOH.

Looks like it went direct to DOH again today

orbitmic

will fly this coming week so very interested to know if the flight is back to nonstop or still have a tech stop in Perth (or elsewhere). As I'm going to New Zealand in y for less than 48 hours (from London!) I really hope it's back to normal as I'd hate to lose a further 3 hours of my short flight there.

DS7

Thank you ^

iluvflying

We Flew AKL-DOH-BCN return over the last month and must say we thoroughly enjoyed the experience the service was outstanding and when we got to Doha we had STPC and this was great there were so many people in the airport even at 1am helping direct you to the right places.

The only downer and its only small, is the Lounge in BCN this would be the worst lounge I have ever been in, even wanted to charge 10euro for the shower, it was dirty.

orbitmic

Just completed my crazy return trip to Auckland in Y with only 48 hours onsite with the return on QR via DOH (and no before anyone asks, there is no 'mileage run' involved here, some of us do have to work and sometimes to accept Y on even the most exhausting of itineraries).

I had hoped for 'lucky winds' that would shorten the longest flight in the world, but no such luck, and leaving a few minutes early, we barely arrived about on time 18 hours 30 later. Fortunately, however, the flight wasn't full, and the crew was able to get me a full row of three seats to myself which made all the difference. The armrests do not fully rise (enough for someone slender like me, but people with larger build might find it impossible to lay down), and there are hard metal pieces underneath them which sadly ensure residual discomfort, and 3 seats is still not long enough to fully stretch, but whilst I did not sleep much as a result of all of that, I did manage to get a lot of "half awake" sleep which was already wayyyy better than anything one gets when the flight is full. Still, for full and fair comparison, I also had a full row to myself on one of my KE outbound flights and that was actually much more comfortable to lay down in.

I found the food surprisingly poor, especially the first meal (served about 1 hour into the flight), where they had also run out of my choice by the time they reached my row (the 'price to pay' for the full row to myself was to get it at the very back of the aircraft). However, crew were very nice, apologised, and offered to reserve my preference for the second meal. First meal was dinner with a choice of beef with potatoes (which I would have had), chicken with polenta (which I had and wasn't very good) and ravioli all' arabiatta. Starter was a horrid pseudo-tabuleh which I left after a mouthful, and there was a poor dessert. All served on a half tray.

The second main meal (about 2h30 before landing) was a choice of omelette with chicken sausage or bbq chicken with rice (which I reserved) which was better than the first meal. It came with a muffin and fruit salad and some Philadelphia and a chocolate square.

In between, you had plenty to eat: a small snack box with various cereal bars, dried fruit, olive, etc. Strangely enough, they all looked the same but seemed to have different contents! Then a chocolate ice cream pot, then a warm snack service (a warm savoury pastry - chicken yet again or veggies, together with a chocolate cake). Finally, a second ice cream run came after the second meal (I suspect with leftovers) and crisps and shortbreads were on offer in between meals in the galley too.

Pillows were small but decent as were the fleece blankets, and crew were actually very nice. In fact, I found them more spontaneous and at ease than in my numerous J experiences (where I already find QR crew very good, but I think in Y, they are less worried about being too casual or offending passengers and it makes them very spontaneous and charming). One of my dedicated crew from Japan was particularly good.

Contents of toiletry bag was minimal and not particularly useful and unlike several competitors, bathrooms do not stock moisturiser which would have been a great help on such a long flight. Of course, as always, tissues instead of paper towels but that is true across classes. Oh, and we had a veryyyy long bus deboarding and ride and massive queues at flight connections with no fast track of any sort for status pax in Y.

The second flight (DOH-LHR) had even more effective crew (introduction to Emeralds at start of flight, meal reservations for the main meal breakfast at start of flight, etc) and the A380 beats the 772 hands down, but the flight was full and that was enough to make it much less comfortable of course. Strangely enough, while the first snack was as poor as the AKL mid flight snack, the breakfast was much better and in fact, I recognised main dishes that I have had in J!

On the whole, with a full plane, the long flight would have been really quite unpleasant, but with low enough loads for me to get a full row to myself, this changed the whole picture and made it surprisingly tolerable. Still, I thought food was sub-par compared to Y food on several competitors (KE, JL, TK, CX, SQ, AF, notably) and more or less a tie with the likes of BA and toiletries etc rather 'no frills' (again, KE was better).

Anyway, keeps you young and prevents you from taking the luxuries of J travel for granted but for such a long flight with so little time at destination, it was always going to be exhausting.

PS: I found the First lounge at DOH ok. Obviously nowhere near the real J and F lounges but clean and sufficient for a 2 hour stop, busy but with seating available and a shower available after a short wait (smaller than in the J and F lounges but fine though it's weird to place the body lotion in the shower itself!). On the whole, the flight was far less bad than I had feared though in fairness, it is more thanks to the loads than to QR.

FlyingScientist

Seems unusal, Flightradar24 reports flight times between 16:57 hrs and 17:36 hrs for the recent week.

remdk

FlyingScientist NZ summertime started 24 September and could be the reason for the apparent discrepancy.

FlyingScientist

The data reported on Flightradar24 appear to be correct.

skunker

What lounge were you in? The BCN lounge is no where near being bad.

I assume you were in the MIRO lounge and that's not a small lounge.

For the worst lounges in the oneworld system see MPM or SPU.

florens

Does anyone know whether there is an arrival lounge at AKL that J pax can use?

remdk

florens no unless there is a pay lounge that has not been mentioned yet.
Only DOH has arrival lounges for QR passengers. Remember that Arrival lounges are NOT part of the OW agreement.

skunker

Arrivals lounges are few and far between; I can think of three (LHR, DOH, and HKG). Remember lounge access is based upon departure, not arrival, if you don't have a connecting flight.

florens

Thanks for your quick responses.